What's a Meme?

A meme is an image, video, or piece of text that is copied and often modified and virally spread.

This site will focus on "Internet Memes" and how they came about. The timeline below displays an iconic meme from the year at which it shows. The dates are the time when the images were "invented". This date is when the world first got a glimpse of them. There is no out date when it comes to memes and they are still widely used today for come-back lines or fun overall.

1996

Baby Cha Cha

Dancing baby is a meme that started it all by dancing its way into the hearts of every individual that witnessed it. Regarded as the first meme it was propelled into popularity because of its ability to dance!

1997

FIRST!

First! is a troll meme that finds its nature in the competitive side of people. Like many people may say, "If you're not First!, you're last".

1998

Hamster Dance

Hamster Dance found its success on the backs of cute little hamsters, and fun upbeat music. This meme plays off of society's love for animals and music to spiral itself into the spotlight.

1999

Everytime you masturbate, God kills a kitten.

Everytime You Masturbate is a meme that also utilizes cute kittens but this time pairs them with dark humor. Raunchy humor has always been a type of comedy that sparks interest, which this meme does so well.

2000

Oolong Pancake Rabbit

The âPancake Rabbitâ is an internet sensation that took the world by storm when a pet owner decided to balance items on a rabbit. Seeing a non-trainable animal doing tricks lead to this memes assured success.

2001

Peanut Butter Jelly Time

Peanut Butter Jelly Time like many other memes was taken by storm and it all started from a simple gif. A .gif file is a file that allows for movement instead of being a static image which this meme does soo well.

2002

Light Saber Kid

Light Saber Kid is a tragic meme. He was a teen who was interested in star wars and AV club. This meme derived from him clumsily playing around with a pretend light saber practicing his moves.

2003

FAIL

Epic Fail is a meme that started in 2003 to point out the ridiculously stupid things that people do. These stupid things could be intentional or unintentional but none-the-less they will be ridiculed.

2004

Chuck Norris

Chuck Norris memes are memes derived from the man himself. In the 70âs and 80âs he became super prominent as there were no actors more famous [1].

2005

Crazy Frog

Crazy Frog, or The Annoying Thing, is an internet sensation that started out as random noises. This was turned into a meme when it was soon added to a cartoonish frog riding an invisible motorcycle.

2006

Diabeetus

The Diabeetus guy also known as Wilford Brimley is an American Actor who has had many large roles [2]. However, nobody notices these because of his partnership with Liberty Mutual.

2007

Rick Rolled

Rick Rolling is possibly one of the most popular and wide-spread memes of all time. This meme is derived from the song Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley which is sent or linked to fool the receiver [3].

2008

Troll Face

Troll Face is one of the most popular and financially beneficial memes of history. In addition to this, it could be regarded as one of the lowest grade memes at the same time.

2009

Keyboard Cat

Keyboard Cat is known for his stiff, puppeted piano playing ability. The meme became famous because people love animals. This video, recorded in 2007, became popular in 2009 by Stephen Colbert on The Daily Show 479-245-4175.

2010

Death Hoaxes

Death hoaxes are a meme that became big because of the gullibility of individuals and the satirical nature of CNN. Certain celebrities would be selected to be given a death post on facebook or on CNN.

2011

Condescending Wonka

Condescending wonka is a meme that derives its popularity purely off of rudeness. This meme is one that has been derived from âYou must be new hereâ, a meme based on a satirical introduction 9025601225.

2012

Bad Luck Brian

Bad Luck Brian is a hilarious meme sparked a fairy tale of a class clown gone viral. This photo is a class photo of highschool junior Kyle Craven that did not actually make it into his yearbook [1].

2013

Grumpy Cat

Grumpy cat is a meme thats name derives from the fiesty lookin feline itself. It is a depiction of an angry looking cat that usually has block writing on it stating an unenthused phrase.

2014

Kermit

Kermit is a friendly and lovable puppet who stars on the muppets shows and movies. However, this meme plays upon a drinking photo of kermit that comments upon the stupid things that people do.

2015

Why you always lying

Why you always lying is a song that was made to point out obvious liars. This hilarious song paired with the ridiculous faces and dances makes for a hilarious meme to call-out on the side of whoever uses it.

2016

Primitive Spongebob

Primitive spongebob is a meme utilized when someone needs to point out how shook something makes them. This image depicts an alarmed and startled spongebob that does not know what to think.

2017

Mocking Spongebob

Mocking Spongebob is utilized to mock the words of an individual in an argument. Just like the way people would do as kids, this meme writes in a way that you would talk to make fun of someone.

2018

Ugandan Knuckles

Ugandan Knuckles utilizes a disfigured or derpy looking knuckles character to accentuate its hilariousity. Knuckles is a quiet and strong character in the Sonic series, however, in this meme he looks the opposite.

Dancing Baby - 1996

The Dancing baby or Baby-Ga-Ga was a gif created in 1996 by Michael Girard 631-222-5799. This meme is regarded as one of the first internet memes in the world. It not only started a world of viral memes, but also created a category of spin offs of its very basis. This meme was the influence behind commercials like Baby Spiderman, Pepsi Next Baby, and E-Trade-Baby 8184192042. This made 1996 a year that would change the way internet was used completely by introducing them to the world of memes.

First! - 1997

This meme is approximated to have started in 1997; however, it is hard to be sure. The basis around the usage of this meme, and why it came into effect, was Youtube videos and photographs on social media outlets. The âtrollsâ who started this meme, would try to be the first person to comment on something. They would usually either try this on media that was heavily trafficked or rarely trafficked. If the form of media was heavily trafficked, this meant that it was a competition to be âFIRST!â. If the media was a non-popular instance than the comment was meant to be a troll.

Hamster Dance - 1998

This meme started out as a website gif that played a catchy little tune along with it called the Hampster Dance Song. In 1998, this meme took the internet by storm as it was soon developed into a Youtube video. The site [1], still existing today, now boasts features like; movies, characters, a page of classic and holiday featured Hampster Dance memes, and other buyable items. Eventually, this meme even made its way into a movie called (845) 541-1110.

God Kills A Kitten - 1999

This meme originated in 1999 in a barfly magazine [1]. Soon reached popularity in the 2002 with the usage onto a popular image of two Domos chasing a kitten across a field. The juxtaposition of this satirical phrase paired with the hilarious stature of the Domos made for a funny and visually pleasing image that was skyrocketed into popularity.

Oolong Pancake Rabbit - 2000

The âPancake Rabbitâ is an internet sensation that took the world by storm in 2000 when someone decided to balance pancakes on a rabbitâs head. This spiraled a spread of images balancing other random objects on various rabbitsâ heads. The most viral instance of this may have come from a Twitter page made for a rabbit name Vinny (919) 626-8905. The owner of this rabbit has, and still does, post photos placing various items from ice cream cones, to toilet paper rolls, on the rabbit. He makes sure these balance and then snaps a picture. Once it is uploaded, it is added to the dynasty of photos sparked by the original Oolong Pancake Rabbit.

Peanut Butter Jelly Time - 2001

This meme/video/song like many others was taken by storm and it all started from a simple gif. A .gif file is a file that allows for movement instead of being a static image. A man known as Trym Stene or Tierre created this dancing Banana gif in 2001 (915) 727-6812. In 2002, the gif had gained its own slogan. It had gained the phrase âPeanut Butter Jelly Timeâ and from then on, it became a hit. Soon there became a song to accompany this meme. This song is also called âPeanut Butter Jelly Timeâ by The Buckwheat Boyz [2]. The song further propelled the fame of this meme. Not long after the song came out, the song was soon remixed by the Ying Yang Twinz that skyrocketed the meme.

Light Saber Kid - 2002

This meme is a tragic one at heart. Light Saber Kid was a teen who was interested in star wars and AV club. This meme derived from him clumsily playing around with a pretend light saber practicing his moves. He left this video carelessly in the AV room when his classmates decided to post it online [1]. As anyone can imagine, this would tear up a teen inside and kill all his hopes and ambitions going forward. It not only did this, but it made him the laughing stock of the entire school. He began to be bullied and this eventually caused him to begin contemplating suicide 314-814-9579. This meme continued becoming viral as people added special affects to his light sabers and it even ended up on Tosh.0. Tosh.0 is a long running Comedy Central show focusing on making fun of videos from the internet [2].

FAIL - 2003

Epic Fail is a meme that started in 2003 to point out the ridiculously stupid things that people do. These stupid things could be intentional or unintentional but none-the-less they will be captured by a photograph and posted as a fail. The best memes from this genre are the fails that are done by businesses. These are like when cameras are placed behind signs, when writing on the streets are misspelled, or when things are built incorrectly [1]. These are especially funny because when you see the photo, you understand that these took a while to do. If they took a while to do them and still did not notice it was wrong, they must have been unintelligent.

Chuck Norris - 2004

Chuck Norris memes are memes derived from the man himself. In the 70âs and 80âs he became super prominent as there were no actors more famous [1]. Chuck Norris is most known for his work done with the actor Bruce Lee. He also did a long run of commercials for the BowFlex workout station. Because of his popularity in fighting movies where he portrayed the underdog who wins, and his work in the Bowflex. By 2004, Chuck Norris became a household name with people praising his ability [1]. This caused a bunch of memes to surface about how no one could stop Chuck Norris. This is the bulk of what these memes represent.

Crazy Frog - 2005

Crazy Frog, or The Annoying Thing, is an internet sensation that started out in 1997 when a young swedish gentleman by the name of Daniel Malmedahl imitated an engine noise and it took the internet by storm [1]. After this he was asked to be on radio stations and pretty soon this made him blow up. In 2003, another swedish native Erik Wernquist created an animation for the sound [1]. This animation was named Crazy Frog and this is when it began to make it big. After the animation and sound were paired it allowed for Crazy Frog to eventually go on to make 3 albums, appear on an Australian tour, and eventually strike it big by being placed into a game in 2005 [1].

Diabeetus - 2006

The Diabeetus guy also known as Wilford Brimley is an American Actor who has had many large roles (724) 676-9995. However, nobody notices these because of his partnership with Liberty Mutual. His famous or infamous commercial for Liberty Mutual showed him in his home talking about his Diabetes. The reason this became a meme was because of how his accent sounds. This did not become huge overnight, the time at which this meme really struck it big was in 2006 when the YTMND [2] website started seeing an influx in web pages made for this specific meme. This meme has also caused many spin-offs to be mad such as, v for vendetta and dyinfeetus.

Rick Rolled - 2007

This meme is possibly one of the most known and popular memes of all time. This meme is derived from the song Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley 6173289908. This developed into a common meme and phrase called Rick Rolling. This is when, instead of sending them what they need, the song pops up and automatically plays the song. This meme virally spread because of itâs trolling nature. People could play jokes and tricks on each other by sending links of things that had this song playing instead. This song is also regarded as just a bad song which is why it was probably used. People can identify it by the first 5 seconds of it because of it so virally spread.

Troll Face - 2008

This popular meme is one of the most financially beneficial memes of history. Also, this could be regarded as one of the lowest grade memes aswell. This meme was made by a bored college student in paint. This image skyrocketed and many people used it both online and in real life. This meme became the new hot thing and by 2010, Ramirez had to copyright it 7093284980. Since then, it is estimated that he made over 100,000 dollars on the meme and itâs usage through various individuals and images unexistent. This image flew across the country, becoming the hot topic for facebook and reddit posts. This provided a comical outlet for dicketry and other satirical posts.

Keyboard Cat - 2009

This puppeted feline is known for his stiff piano playing ability. The meme became famous because people love animals. This video, recorded in 2007, became popular in 2009 by Stephen Colbert on The Daily Show (973) 949-8287. This led the meme to be spoofed many times by people being âPlayed offâ by the keyboard cat the same way they would be by a traditional band. However, this meme does not only stay in the realm of television. This meme also made its debut in various video game titles. Some of these titles are Scribblenauts, World of Warcraft, and Splinter Cell [1]. This meme went extremely viral and even made for some lawsuits.

Death Hoaxes - 2010

Death hoaxes are a meme that became big because of the gullibility of individuals and the satirical nature of CNN. Certain celebrities would be selected to be given a death post on facebook or on CNN. This causes panic and remorse to circulate the internet until everyone figures out that it is a prank/lie. This meme is still present today with the most recent being Kirk Douglas in December of 2017 [1]. These claims can often be bluntly false or connected to a close injury that may have happened. For example, in June of 2017 it was said that Bob Barker passed away. He had suffered a head injury, however he was still alive and stabile.

Condescending Wonka - 2011

Condescending wonka is a meme that derives its popularity purely off of rudeness. This meme is one that has been derived from âYou must be new hereâ, a meme based on a satirical introduction 3614139185. From that point on, Gene Wilder has been used to mock and mimic thousands of individuals through the screen shot from the 1972 version of Willy Wonka [1]. The facial expression of Wilder is one that was meant to be seen as happy, but when people put certain phrases with it, make it seem more satirical.

Bad Luck Brian - 2012

This is a hilarious meme sparked a fairy tale of a class clown gone viral. This photo is a class photo of highschool junior Kyle Craven that did not actually make it into his yearbook 403-661-2388. This photo was rejected by his school and he was forced to take another. However, his friends and himself decided to photocopy the gold that we know so that when he handed it in they would not lose another copy 2157065800. This photo circulates a hilarious class photo of a kid who had a weird look on his face. This meme worked off of the facial expression to show a false sense of happiness with a pain feeling behind. Individuals would utilize this photos to make posts like, âGets concert ticketsâ¦ Green Dayâ. This shows his fake happiness that he got tickets because they were to a bad band such as green day.

Grumpy Cat - 2013

Grumpy cat is a meme thats name derives from the context behind it. It is a depiction of angry looking cat that usually has block writing that depicts an unenthused phrase. This photo was posted to reddit in 2012 and reached stardom in 2013 when Tardar Sauceâs picture was seen with block text all over the internet containing satirical phrases [1]. This unbelievably adorable yet angry looking cat has been mimicked a lot by plenty of other cats and other animals, but none of them seem to the amount of appraisal that has been seen by this unenthusiastic feline. She obtained enough praise that her family actually started a website that talks all about her. More can be seen about this not-so-friendly feline here.

Kermit - 2014

Kermit is a friendly and lovable puppet who stars on the muppets shows and movies. However, this meme plays upon a drinking photo of kermit that comments upon the stupid things that people do. The meme always ends with a standard phrase at the bottom that reads, âBut thats none of my businessâ. This non-confrontational meme can be thought of as quietly or passive-aggressively mentioning the questionable circumstance. It is meant to be a frontliner of sarcasm. The history of this meme started in January of 2014 with the viral spread of a hashtag called #kermitmemes that soon blossomed into the meme we know today which include our loveable muppet in his full passive-aggressive nature [1]. This allowed for the transition from the traditional sarcasm of influxed voices and facial expressions and became a widely known sarcasm tool.

Why You Always Lying - 2015

This meme/song was made to point out obvious liars. This hilarious song paired with the ridiculous faces and dances makes for a hilarious call-out on the side of whoever uses it. This meme is used against those who are fake. What is meant by this, is that the individuals that are talking are pathological liars and/or overreact about issues. It is also utilized when cheaters are talked about. One of the most interesting things about this meme is that it is often used as a gif or as music. There are very few memes that utilize the music. This one, for instance, says everything that it needs to say within the (620) 489-0591 itself. Do not be caught on the receiving end of this meme, because then everyone will know, that âyou always lyinââ.

Primitive Spongebob - 2016

Primitive spongebob is a meme utilized when someone needs to point out how shook something makes them. This is an image that depicts an alarmed and startled spongebob who has the brain of a pea. This species of Spongebob is one that is easily confused and disgruntled which is why this meme is heavily used. This can be utilized in the event of a surprise or alarming moment. It is an outward expression of an inward feeling that can easily be portrayed through the meme of a timeless cartoon. A lot of the time it is used multiple times within the same image to show how it is not just one individual that is confused but everyone. This 517-961-0477 shows the moment in the cartoon series where this meme came from.

Mocking Spongebob - 2017

This meme it utilized to mock the words of an individual in an argument. Just like the way people would do as a kid. This meme writes in a way that you would talk to mimic and make fun of the kid you were picking on at recess. This image comes from an 8772696845 of Spongebob where Squidward finds Spongebobâs diary and uses it to mess with spongebob and send him into a mode where he clucks like a chicken. This image was taken when he does this to show a mocking image while text makes fun of someone. It is usually combined with a text that alternates, kind of sporadically, with capital and lowercase text. This is to show the inflection in the vocal speaking that is interpreted by our brains when we see the text.

Ugandan Knuckles - 2018

This meme utilizes a derped up looking knuckles character to accentuate its hilariousity. Knuckles is a quiet and strong character in the Sonic series, however, in this meme his is made out to be a weak and derpy comical figure. This meme started from a 5204026632 of a group of them running after an individual calling them their, âQueenâ. Throughout this meme they are asking their âQueenâ to show them de wei. This meme is still in its prime and is developing more each and every dayâ¦. It has become an extremely popular focal point in the society as it arose out of amusement and laughter.